Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/191610 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Series/Report no.: 
GLO Discussion Paper No. 307
Publisher: 
Global Labor Organization (GLO), Maastricht
Abstract: 
Arab society in Israel offers a counter-example, which calls into question the hypothesis that the male advantage in STEM decreases as gender equality in society increases. Analyzing administrative longitudinal data on students in Hebrew- and Arabic-language schools in Israel, all operating within the same centralized education system, we find that the gender achievement-gap favoring girls in Arabic schools, the ethnic group characterized by less gender equality, is greater than the gender gap favoring girls in Hebrew schools. Moreover, maledominated STEM matriculation electives in Hebrew schools are female-dominated in Arabic schools, controlling for prior achievement in mathematics. We show that these patterns are not dependent on socioeconomic or school characteristics but rather reflect ethnic differences in the gendered effect of prior achievement on subject choice. While in Hebrew-language schools the gender gaps favoring men in physics, computer science and advanced mathematics electives increase in early mathematical achievement, in Arabic-language schools gender gaps favoring men are non-existent and even reversed among top achieving students.
Subjects: 
culture
gender gap in mathematics
STEM
Arab society
educational choice
JEL: 
I21
J15
J16
J24
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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